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Most ViewedAn Experiment 2An Experiment Time Of Greatest Irritability Expense Of Renewing Combs Burying Bees Remedial Experiments Bees Do Not Increase If Full After The First Year In Same Hive Bee Pasturage One Like Common Hive Preferred Not Properly Understood Least ViewedAn Experiment 2An Experiment Time Of Greatest Irritability Expense Of Renewing Combs Burying Bees Remedial Experiments Bees Do Not Increase If Full After The First Year In Same Hive Bee Pasturage One Like Common Hive Preferred Not Properly Understood |
Are Not Bees An Advantage To Vegetation?Category: BEE PASTURAGE. Vegetable physiology seems to indicate a similar necessity in that department. The stamens and pistils of flowers answer the different organs of the two sexes in animals. The pistil is connected with the ovaries, the stamens furnish the pollen that must come in contact with the pistil; in other words, it _must be impregnated_ by this dust from the stamens, or no fruit will be produced. Now if it be necessary to change the breed, or essential that the pollen produced by the stamens of one flower shall fertilize the pistil of another, to prevent barrenness, what should we contrive better than the arrangement already made by Him who knew the necessity and planned it accordingly? And it works so admirably, that we can hardly avoid the conclusion _that bees were intended for this important purpose_! It is thus planned! Their wants and their food shall consist of honey and pollen; each flower secretes but little, just enough to attract the bee; nothing like a full load is obtained from one; were it thus, the end in view would not be answered; but a hundred or more flowers are often visited in one excursion; the pollen obtained from the first may fertilize many, previous to the bees' returning to the hive; thus a field of buckwheat may be kept in health and vigor in its future productions. A field of wheat produces long slender stalks that yield to the influence of the breeze, and one ear is made to bestow its pollen on a neighboring ear several feet distant, thereby effecting just what bees do for buckwheat. Corn, from its manner of growth, the upright stalk bearing the stamens some feet above the pistils, on the ears below, seems to need no agency of bees; the superabundant pollen from the tassel is wafted by the winds rods from the producing stalk, and there does its office of fertilizing a distant ear, as is proved by different varieties mixing at some distance. But how is it with our vines trailing on the earth, a part of these flowers producing stamens, the other only pistils? Now it _is absolutely essential_ that pollen from the staminate flowers shall be introduced into the pistillate to produce fruit; because if a failure occurs in this matter the germ will wither and die. Here we have the agent ready for our purpose; these flowers are visited by the bee promiscuously; no pollen (as was said) is kneaded into pellets, (particularly that from pumpkins,) but it adheres to every part of their body, rendering it next to impossible for a bee thus covered with dust to enter the pistillated flower without fulfilling the important duty designed, and leave a portion of the fertilizing dust in its proper place. Hence it is reasonably inferred by many, that if it was not for this agent among our vines, the uncertainty of a crop from non-fertilization would render the cultivation of them a useless task. When the aphis is located on the stalk or leaf of a plant it is furnished with means to pierce the surface and extract the juices essential to the formation of the plant, thereby preventing vigorous growth and a full development. This idea is too apt to be associated with the bee when she visits the flower, as if she was armed with a spear, to pierce bark or stem and rob it of its nourishment. Her real structure is lost sight of, or perhaps never known; her slender brush-like tongue folded closely under her neck, and seldom seen except when in use, is not fitted to pierce the most delicate substance; all that it can be used for is to sweep or lick up the nectar as it exudes from the pores of the flower, secreted, it would seem, for no other purpose but to attract her--while there she obtains nothing but what nature has provided for her and given her the means of obtaining, and the most delicate petal receives no injury. During an excursion the bee seldom visits more than a single species of flower; were it otherwise, and all kinds of flowers were visited promiscuously, by fertilizing one species with the pollen from another, the vegetable kingdom would be very likely to get into confusion. Writers, when noticing the peculiarity of instinct governing the bee here, cannot be content always, but must add other marvels. They follow this trait into the hive, and make her store every kind by itself there. Relative to honey it is not an easy matter to be positive; but pollen is of a variety of colors, generally yellow, yet sometimes pale-green, and reddish or dark-brown. Now I think a little patient inspection would have satisfied any one that two kinds _are_ sometimes packed in one cell, and prevented the assertion to the contrary. I will admit that two colors are seldom found packed together, but sometimes will be. I have thus found it, and it has entirely ruined that theory for me. Next: A Test For The Presence Of Queen Doubted Previous: Do Bees Injure The Crop?
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